Movie reviews and critics

[Bumblefeet]

Back in the late 90s/early 00s, the only movie reviews you'd find online were James Berardinelli's tiny essays and the typical Variety/Rolling Stone big magazine articles if they even bothered reviewing the film. There were also the odd pauline Kael review, safe to say I was not a fan.

With the advent of Youtube, I found myself looking back at a lot of the Siskel/Ebert reviews and discovering Roger Ebert's site, I even stuck around for the Ebert/Roeper reviews and subsequently Michael Philips. With Ebert gone and Roeper's relevance quickly diminishing, I turned to BBC's Mark Kermode whose reviews I still follow today.

Of the youtube generation, of course Jeremy Jahns seems to be the most popular. I've tried to sit through his reviews but the hyper style of treating the audience as 3 year olds as well as the constant editing and rambling that only exists to not allow you breathing space to think about what you just heard (cause else you'd turn it off) annoys me to no end.
This obnoxious trend seems to have carried on with other wanna-be Jahns reviewers who've discovered that when you edit out the breathing parts, your garbled review appears more coherent.

Also, there now has to a spoiler free and spoiler review, because critics have given up with the challenge of reviewing a movie without giving too much away. I applaud directors like David Lynch for not talking about the meaning or even story of his films so that audiences are allowed to experience it via the theatrical experience, and not via word of mouth or even the trailer.

Don't get me wrong, I do have an appreciation for amateur "independant" reviewers, I applaud Grace Randolph from beyond the trailer for often given lenghty takes on movies, though I wish she would have continued her original concept of interviewing audience members leaving the theater. The problem I have with most youtube reviewers is that they focus too much on what's not relevant; the trailer, the box office, the public's reaction, the cast and crew resume they found on wikipedia... anything that can have them avoid reviewing that movie, because that would take up actual time and effort.

I wonder which critics most people around here like to check up on once in a while?